Use Case 1: Overview of Kelp Forest Nitrogen Budget

Overview of Scientific Problem:

Nitrogen is essential for kelp growth. Scientist would like to know the sources of nitrogen for kelp forests along the California Coast (Santa Barbara and Monterey). Kelp takes up nitrogen from water in dissolved form, as nitrate (NO3), nitrite (NO2) and ammonium (NH4). Growth of kelp and nutrient uptake varies seasonally. Major sources of nitrogen for kelp include the Pacific Ocean (carried by ocean currents), and various rivers and streams which enter the ocean near the kelp forest. Delivery for both sources varies seasonally. Scientist would like to know the relative importance of these two sources to kelp growth, and resulting nitrogen-content of kelp tissue. Both ocean delivery modes and nitrogen content, and stream discharge rate and stream nitrogen concentration are affect by large-scale climatic events. Scientists will want to the effect of El Nino events on nitrogen delivery and kelp budgets.

{Pacific} Kelp Nitrogen budget: Overview of Use case steps

Find distribution of kelp forests (of interest)

Estimate (historical) terrestrial N inputs

Estimate (historical) oceanic N inputs

Estimate N usage by kelp

Calculate overall budget

Compare budget in El Nino vs non El Nino years

Specific Challenge Tasks

Discovery: Discover data on concentrations of dissolved nitrogen contributed to Kelp forest from Santa Barbara and Monterey that is outside the kelp forest but within 1km distance. Discover data describing water flow which can be used to calculate delivery of dissolved nitrogen

Assessment: Determine if given data sources can be used in particular methods for estimating Nitrogen delivery

requires describing and matching constraints of the nitrogen estimation model of interest

Integration: Create a derived data product that contains observations from each of the appropriate data sources with an estimate of Nitrogen delivery (mass per time vectors) at given scale X (space+time) for each kelp bed